Califeducation #3: The Coast Starlight, San Luis Obispo, and Solvang

For July 4th weekend, which is halfway between my mom's birthday and mine, I headed down to LA, where the madre lives. She had planned a surprise trip for me on the Coast Starlight (an Amtrak line on the West Coast, notorious for its wonderful views) to San Luis Obispo – I wanted to go to Santa Barbara, but the views get real good between Santa Barbara and San LO, so we went a bit farther north to get the good stuff and it totally paid off.

This is from the train. FROM THE TRAIN.

The highlight of the trip was the train ride. It's not that the trip was bad, it's just that the train ride was that good. It was my first one, so I suppose it's kind of like how you remember your first love. I wonder if any other train ride I ever take will compare. Correction: it was my first train ride in America. Train rides in Vietnam are full of men spitting into the aisle, people yelling into their cellphones, and obnoxious music videos playing so loudly they can't be ignored.

Once my mom and I finally figured out that you have to practically beg for a seat assignment (Yelp did not clue us in on that one), we got our seats and asked just about every attendant when we could move to the observation car. Here's what every Yelp review should say (and doesn't):

"When you go to get on the train, ask for a seat assignment. If the attendant you ask says something akin to, "She can get you one over there...hopefully," don't be alarmed; you won't be the first one to have been told that. Once you finally do get your assignment, find your seat, sit your butt down, and bask in all the leg room you have compared to every flight you've ever taken. Then, as soon as the conductor guy scans your ticket and your seat assignment, book it to the observation car. From LA, you'll have to wait about 2 hours for good views, but you'll have the best seat in the house (in fact, you'll actually have a seat) for when the waves finally do come crashing in around you. And if it's Thursday - Sunday you're in even more luck: there's this awesome National Parks volunteer tour guide group that makes it an even more memorable experience. Coast Starlight? 4 stars fo' sho'."

So for the entire trip, my mom and I planted ourselves in the observation car, which looks like this:



And offers views like this:




My favorite, though, was probably the trestle that we crossed. Made me feel like Jesse James could come out with his gun at any time, you know?



We got off the train pretty high on life, eventually got our rental car from a 19-year-old boy with eyes like Frank Sinatra, and headed on over to the Apple Farm Inn, the cutest little boutique hotel this side of the Rockies. There's a bakery, restaurant, and mill right there, too, so if you don't feel going up to Pismo Beach, you can just bask in massages, ice cream, and comfort food and then roll on into bed minutes later (even if it is 7:30 PM...cough cough). But the best part about Apple Inn? When you check in, they hand every person in your party cookies (soft, chewy, delectable, melt-in-your-mouth cookies) and a glass of wine. Do I want to go back? Uhh, does the pope wear a funny hat? They even give you a souvenir apple that's waiting for you on your vanity table when you walk in. It's the little things that sell me, you know?


We decided to skip San LO, stuff ourselves silly with the aforementioned comfort food, and head to bed super early for a trip to Solvang in the morning (after we loaded up on complimentary hot cocoa and cider, of course). It's a little town entirely devoted to tourism that is in traditional Danish style, even with horses wandering the streets and women and men dressed in traditional Danish clothing wandering the sidewalks just waiting to answer your questions. There are a ton of windmills, a ton of interesting architecture, and lots and lots of pastries. In other words, it has everything good in this world – well, for at least an afternoon or so.




Solvang – check. Coast Starlight – check. The next Amtrak ride I'd love to take would be up to Seattle or Canada. Sure beats American or Southwest any day of the week, but especially Thursday - Sunday. Don will even give you a sticker-stamp for your National Parks Passport when you hit just past Santa Barbara. With my sticker-stamp, souvenir apple, free cookies, and tummy full of hot cocoa, I reunited once again with the waves. Thanks for the pastry and cocoa-induced diabetes, south-central California. Thank you, Don, for being such a gracious docent. And thank you, railway workers of yore, for letting me travel with the sea (and, you know, get watermelon in winter and stuff).